The future

Many patients, very understandably, ask about their prognosis. It is extremely difficult to predict an individual’s risk of the cancer either coming back after treatment or of it shortening someone’s life.

The temptation is for patients and their relatives to ask for a timescale or likelihood of surviving the disease. The trouble is that the information that doctors have does not accurately predict what will happen for an individual patient.

The data we have on survival and the success of treatments is gained from looking at groups of patients and you cannot accurately use this to say with any certainty what will happen for one particular person. Even if someone is thought to have a type of thyroid cancer where the chances of surviving and living their life as if it never happened is thought to be excellent it cannot be guaranteed. Likewise someone with a type of thyroid cancer that is expected to behave in a more aggressive fashion may do very well and hence better than expected.

The following website link provides figures for thyroid cancer survival for patients in the UK during 2005 but please remember it cannot predict what will happen to you:
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/thyroid

Clinical Trials

Information on current clinical trials can be found at the following websites:

www.clinicaltrials.gov
www.nci.nih.gov
www.centerwatch.com
www.thyroid.org

Support Groups and Links:

www.thyroidsupportwales.co.uk

www.butterfly.org.uk

www.thyroidcancer.org.uk

www.btf-thyroid.org

www.thyca.org

www.amend.org.uk

www.cancerhelp.org.uk

www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/thyroid

www.tenovus.com

www.macmillan.org.uk

www.cancerbackup.org.uk

www.thykidz.com

Thyroid Cancer Forum UK